A Made Up Story/Transcript
A MADE UP STORY Storyboarded and written by Chris Reccardi Art direction by Paul Stec Animation direction by Robert Alvarez, James Tim Walker Directed by John McIntyre, Randy Myers Transcribed by Alan Back Act One (Opening shot: the city skyline at night.) Narrator: The city of Townsville! (Zoom in on one section.) Where something horrible… (Dissolve to a slow overhead pan across the rooftops of one block.) Narrator: …something evil… (Dissolve to the side of a building, where a poster showing a man’s face has been put up.) Narrator: …something nefarious… (A huge, spiky-haied shadow throws itself across the view. Close-up of the poster, which reads “Joe Bob for Congress”; something multicolored flashes across the screen, and when it clears, the image has been touched up considerably. Joe Bob now sports a face full of makeup.) Narrator: (trying to keep from laughing) …something hilarious is taking place! (Zoom in on the altered poster, to the sound of cackling female laughter that echoes through the night, then pull back to frame a portion of the skyline. The many-hued streak zips up and down among the buildings as the camera slowly pans to keep it in frame.) Narrator: Yes, some horrible, evil, nefarious, hilarious prankster… (Cut to a rooftop billboard that shows a happy young couple—this is a travel ad for, of all places, “Siberia—Land of Dreams.” On the next line, the streak flashes past, leaving the images changed similarly to the poster.) Narrator: …is defacing all the billboards… (A poster of a cowboy and his horse is hit.) …posters… (A statue gets made over.) …and statues in Townsville. (Zoom in on the head, then cut to a bus stop bench on which four men are seated; it is now the next day. The eyes of three of them dart about and finally settle on the fourth, who is reading a newspaper; zoom in on him during the following.) Narrator: Who could be behind this senseless lashing out? (Zoom in closer, slowly, to a close-up of this man. He finally raises his eyes and looks back and forth—and then the paper is lowered to show a very tiny fellow sitting in his lap. The latter was holding on to it; he rolls it up, tucks it under his arm, and walks away. From here, cut to a shot of a somewhat surprised-looking Mojo Jojo.) Narrator: Could it be…Mojo Jojo? (A crowd is seen.) Crowd: No! (A plumber works under a sink.) Narrator: Could it be…your plumber? (He pulls himself out and stares confusedly at us. Big, fat, scraggly beard, not too bright.) Crowd: No! (Next up: the car thief from “Girls Gone Mild,” who swiped that black SUV.) Narrator: Could it be…Charlie Bean? (He shrugs.) Crowd: No! (A quick, long pan begins.) Narrator: Or could it be… (Stop on a shadowy area of the city, with a sprawling tower standing high over the other buildings; a large M is on the roof. A violent thunderstorm has begun. Lightning strikes, illuminating the area for a moment and showing the tower to be in ruins, and the view dissolves to a long shot of a silhouette standing at a top-floor window. This figure is very thin, with long arms and legs, claw-like fingers, and spiky hair.) Narrator: (shocked) No! It can’t be! (Dissolve to inside the building, a close-up of the legs; the feet are clad in high heels. Tilt up slowly toward the head and stop. After a long pause, lightning reveals the face in full detail: wide, staring eyes set above a tiny nose; thick lips drawn back from a snarling mouth; chin tapering down to a very fine point. The entire face is heavily made up, and it and the streaked white hair are left half in shadow by the lightning’s glare.) (Another strike, and the silhouette is seen again inside the building. It cackles madly in the voice heard earlier; this individual is the culprit. Pull back a bit from the window, then cut to outside the tower and pull back some more as her laughter rings out and the storm continues. Fade to black.) (Pull back to reveal that the black has now become the pupil of Blossom’s eye, seen in extreme close-up as if through a magnifying glass.) Blossom: Mask Scara! (Pull back. It is now the next day, the sky is clear, and she is indeed peering through a hand-held lens, which she lowers. Her sisters stand with her on a city sidewalk.) Blossom: It’s the work of Mask Scara! (Cut to behind the girls. The Mayor, Ms. Bellum, and the Professor are there as well; in front of them is the object of Blossom’s study—a movie poster advertising Exterminator 3. The face of the insecticide-wielding actor on it has been covered with makeup.) Mayor: Uh…did she say “mascara”? (Close-up of the Professor; zoom in slowly.) Professor: No. Mask Scara, the dreaded villainess. (Dissolve to a curb at which a limousine is pulling up. A carpet has been laid down for its passengers, and a uniformed attendant stands ready. On the next line, the car stops, he opens the rear door, and two dogs are seen on leashes. They get out, followed by their owner—a young blond woman, very stylishly dressed in a pink suit and matching pillbox hat, with a beauty mark above the right corner of her mouth.) Professor: (voice over) Formerly known as fashion mogul Madame M… (Said mogul proceeds along the carpet, after which we see the tower whose ruins were the apparition’s hideout. However, the structure is gleaming and new—this entire sequence shows past events. Zoom in on the M; during the next line, cut to a meeting room, where Madame M is making a presentation to some executives. A graph is projected on a screen behind her.) Professor: (voice over) …whose cosmetics empire made a fortune in makeup sales… (Close-up of the graph, which shows an arrow climbing steadily upward. The vertical axis is labeled “Profits,” while the horizontal one is split into two areas. The lower part of the graph corresponds to “Old Look,” while the much higher part is labeled “‘Trashy Look’ Campaign.”) Professor: (voice over) …by cleverly marketing the Trashy Look. (On the end of this, close-up of a mirror. In it is the reflection of a young blond woman liberally applying mascara to her eyelashes. Pan from her to a black woman putting on lipstick, then a brunette dusting on face powder. All three faces sport a vast overabundance of cosmetics—the aforementioned Trashy Look. From here, cut to a magazine spinning toward the camera against a black backdrop.) Professor: (voice over) But then…one day it happened. (The magazine stops near the camera. It is an issue of Bogus, and it shows the brunette—now rather depressed-looking, with plain hair and no makeup at all. Headline: “The Dull Look is in!”) Professor: (voice over) The Dull Look was in! (Dissolve to a close-up of her, now sitting in a laundromat and reading a magazine; pan to the black woman, then the blonde, both also sporting the no-frills appearance. The former reads her own magazine, while the latter shovels ice cream into her mouth.) Professor: (voice over) Yes, it was the end of the Trashy Look. (The profit graph again; now the arrow plummets.) And Madame M’s empire… (It drops o.c.) …crumbled. (The graph shatters as if it were a pane of glass, and the pieces clear away to reveal Madame M screaming and holding her hands to her head. The red background behind her gradually brightens until she is visible only as a silhouette; her hair springs up into those exaggerated spikes seen earlier. Cut to the exterior of the glittering tower—which becomes its ravaged self of today when lightning cracks across the scene. The rain begins; now we are back to the storm of the previous evening, and the camera zooms in on the uppermost stories and cuts to the silhouette of Mask Scara at the window. Zoom in slowly on her head as the lighting strikes over and over, then cut to a close-up of the glass, through which people can be seen running in a panic. Her face appears as a reflection and can be seen clearly for the first time, with the beauty mark near her mouth giving her away as the former Madame M.) Mask Scara: Finally, my revenge on Dullsville is almost complete. (Pull back slowly to frame her.) Oh, look at them running terrified! (Now enough of her is in frame to reveal that she wears a pink bodysuit, the same shade as the outfit she sported as Madame M, and long black gloves. She turns from the window.) Mask Scara: I’ll shake them to their very foundation! (breaking the mood) Get it? Foundation? (She has a good laugh at this very bad pun. A final crash of lightning, and we are back to the present. The Professor is deep in thought; pull back slowly from him.) Professor: And now she’s taking her misfortune out on all of the innocent signage of Townsville. Boy, that makes me mad—kinda like when you wash your hands in a public restroom, and the hot water just stays cold. Or like when you’re mowing the lawn on a hot summer day, and your undershorts keep riding up the— Bubbles: (from o.c.) Um… (Pull back to frame her.) …Professor, we get the idea. Anyway, I think the makeup looks kinda neat. (Pan to Blossom.) Blossom: I think it’s just lame. (To Buttercup.) Buttercup: Oh, what’s the big deal, anyway? I mean, it’s only dumb posters and billboards and statues. And people getting upset over a little makeup is ridiculous. Hmph! (She puts hands to hips, content in her contempt, but is shaken out of this mood by the reverberating cackle of Mask Scara and sound of her approach. Pull back to frame all three girls, who look around nervously; the villain’s multi-hued trail flashes by and fills the screen.) Narrator: Uh-oh! (It clears, leaving a pink cloud floating in the girls’ place.) What target has Mask Scara chosen to smear this time? (Cut to a flag waving atop a pole. It is designed after the Stars and Stripes, but the blue field extends from top to bottom and shows the Mayor rather than a group of stars.) Narrator: The Townsville flag? Crowd: No! (An open mailbox, with flies buzzing around it.) Narrator: Your neighbor’s mailbox? Crowd: No! (Cut to Buttercup, her back to the camera—but her eyelashes have now been teased out so far that they extend well beyond the sides of her head.) Narrator: Or could it be… (She turns around. Lipstick, mascara, eyeshadow—and a beauty mark to match Mask Scara’s. She has been hit but good.) Narrator: …Buttercup?!? (Pull back to frame all three girls. The pink cloud has dissipated, giving Blossom and Bubbles a good view of what has happened to their sister so they can laugh themselves silly.) Buttercup: Shut up! Blossom: Oh, Buttercup, relax. We’ll just wipe it off. (A towel is produced and rubbed over the victim’s face, but the stuff does not even smear.) Buttercup: Well? Is it off? (Blossom and Buttercup hold back smiles.) Blossom: Uh…not exactly. Here, hold on. (She applies the towel much more vigorously; Buttercup’s hair ends up a mess, but the makeup stays firmly in place.) Buttercup: Well? Blossom: (stifling a smile) Still working on it. (Bubbles holds up a fire hose connected to a hydrant.) Bubbles: Here, try this! (Blossom takes it.) Blossom: Hold on, Buttercup! (Close-up of Bubbles, who looks toward her sisters with noticeable dismay as the sound of repeated pounding is heard. The hose is not being used in quite the way she intended. After several hits, she speaks up.) Bubbles: Um, Blossom? (Pull back. A very angry Buttercup rubs her head at the point where Blossom has been socking her with the hose’s nozzle—a slightly misguided attempt to clean her up.) Bubbles: I meant use the water. (She opens the hydrant valve.) Try now! (A huge stream shoots from the nozzle; it is all Blossom can do to keep the hose steady. Buttercup is hit full force and driven against the back of a truck. After a few seconds, Bubbles closes the valve; as the water drains away, we see Buttercup—now thoroughly bashed and battered, her dress torn, but not one speck of that makeup gone. She slowly slides down over the truck’s bumper and ends up sitting on the pavement.) Buttercup: How about now? (Blossom and Bubbles hold back smiles.) Blossom: It’s…um… (laughing a bit) …still there. (Buttercup screams in complete frustration and begins to slam her head against the truck, denting the rear panel very badly.) Bubbles: Blossom! How about using your ice breath? (Blossom seems to approve of this idea, and Bubbles smiles proudly at having come up with this brainstorm. The redhead sucks in all the air she can hold and lets go with a subzero gust that connects squarely with Buttercup’s face and frosts her over. When it stops, a huge ball of ice has grown to engulf most of her body; only her feet can be seen breaking the surface. Blossom strikes the ice with a flying kick that is seen three times, and the ice shatters away from Buttercup in slow motion. However, this strategy has had no more success than any of the others.) Buttercup: Well? (Her sisters shake their heads fearfully; she growls and starts to boil over.) Bubbles: I know! I’ll use my ultrasonic Bubblesound! (She lets go with the high-powered scream she has used on previous occasions and sets the whole city shaking. A STOP sign starts to vibrate on its pole, and the lettering melts away after a few seconds. A very tall building experiences tremors; finally all the windows blow out. A Mangelene billboard shows a very fat woman lounging in a swimsuit. After a moment, the surface peels away to reveal a different picture: a very surprised moose, with no hair anywhere on its body below the level of its mouth. This is a travel ad for Canada. The moose reaches past the edge of the board, its hooves disappearing as if this image were on a TV screen, and comes up with a towel. It hunches over, holds this in front of itself, and laughs in an embarrassed way.) [Note: The original image is a riff on Angelyne, the “billboard queen” of Los Angeles. Most notable for the self-promoting billboards she has put up throughout that city, she was a candidate for governor of California in the recall election of 2003.] (Cut to the city skyline. As Bubbles’ scream finally dies away, the buildings tremble and collapse in a shower of rubble. Dust clouds fill the screen and slowly clear away to show Buttercup standing hunched over, her back to the camera. Blossom, Bubbles, and the Professor lean in expectantly as the Mayor pops up over the man’s shoulder to see for himself. She wheels to face them—Mask Scara’s work has not been even slightly affected.) Buttercup: Well? (Long pause.) Blossom: I’m sorry, Buttercup, but I think Mask Scara’s makeup is…long-lasting. (Buttercup looks away angrily.) Professor: Girls, I’m afraid this is a job for a scientist. You girls try and catch Mask Scara, and I’ll head home and work on an antidote. (Pan a bit to put the Mayor in view, with Ms. Bellum.) And Mayor—you go…uh…do something with yourself. Mayor: Uh…okay. (Hyped up about his plan of action, the Professor runs o.c.—altogether forgetting that his car is parked right there at the curb. The girls trade slightly bemused looks; after several seconds, his footsteps make themselves head and he walks back to the car. He is trying to play it all off—“yeah, I meant to do that”—as he opens the door. Close-up of the girls, looking after him; the slam of the door and the revving of the engine are heard. Pull back; he backs up and o.c., and the camera shifts to point down this street. The car bounces along, still in reverse. Back to the girls.) Blossom: Let’s go, before Mask Scara strikes— (The villain’s streak fills the screen.) —again? Narrator: Oh, no! (She departs; now the camera pans along a street full of stunned people whose faces have been thickly plastered with cosmetics.) Narrator: It looks like Mask Scara is putting her smear campaign on the whole population! (The pan stops as he finishes this line; a face has been drawn onto a mailbox. Mask Scara strikes again; cut to a view of several billboards that have had eyes painted on. She zips here and there to add mouths as the camera pulls back slowly.) Narrator: Yes, it looks like Mask Scara is painting the whole town indeed! (Another sweep, and the view changes to the exterior of Pokey Oaks Kindergarten. Zoom in.) Narrator: Making no discrimination between… (Inside, Ms. Keane is at the blackboard, her back to us.) …the good guys… (She turns around, revealing that she too has been victimized. Another sweep; now the view has shifted to the Mayor’s office. His chair is turned away from the desk; zoom in as it swivels, exposing him sitting there with the Trashy Look firmly established. He holds a hand mirror.) Mayor: Gee, uh…I kinda like it. Narrator: …and the bad guys! (She sweeps through here; now the view has changed to a long shot of Mojo’s observatory. Close-up of him inside, seen from the jawline down; he is howling in rage. Tilt up to his face, which is in the same shape as all the others. Another sweep, and Fuzzy Lumkins stands in his shack, with jaw hanging open and makeup on. Again: the Amoeba Boys have been hit. Again: the Gangrene Gang. Again: Princess Morebucks. Again: the crowd that has been reacting to the Narrator’s queries.) Narrator: Oh, no! It looks like she’s painted just about everybody! (Another sweep, and a portion of the city skyline is seen. She flashes into the air, cackling insanely all the while; cut to her in flight, with a giant lipstick in one hand and a powder brush in the other. For the first time, her footwear can be seen in its entirety: black, thigh-high, spike-heeled boots. The next words jolt her out of her celebration and stop her dead in midair.) “Him”: (from o.c., singing) I’m pretty, I feel pretty— (He starts and ends this bit in his effeminate voice, going briefly to the evil one. Long shot of his domain: a floating mountain, with other bits of land bobbing here and there. The entire area is seen against a black-and-white backdrop of a stunt pilot walking along the wings of his biplane in flight. As the singing continues, zoom in quickly through a hole in the mountainside; “Him” is sitting at a vanity and applying makeup.) “Him”: —oh so pretty, I’m pretty, ha-ha! (Mask Scara cannot contain her glee and charges in. When she arrives, the backdrop has changed to a color clip of a small girl playing in a garden; it then starts to show various random images as it did during “The Boys Are Back in Town.” “Him” is a bit irritated at the intrusion; the woman’s face goes slack when she realizes just how heavily her would-be target already hits the cosmetics. “Him” stares back at her, equally confounded. Mask Scara. Extreme close-up of “Him”’s eye, tilting down to the mouth, then up to the other cheek. She stands there, trying to make up her mind what to do with her lipstick and brush, then has a flash of inspiration.) (In no time flat, “Him” finds himself enveloped in her whirling dervish for several seconds. When she backs off, his face is covered with clown makeup, and his hair now sticks out in bushy red tufts above his ears. Mask Scara’s laughter echoes as her streaks fill the screen to mark her departure; when the view clears, we are back in the city, with more buildings showing makeup faces, and she is zipping away as the camera pulls back slowly.) Narrator: Is there no hope for Townsville? Can anyone stop this faceless defacing? (brightly) We’ll find out after these messages. (Fade to black.) Act Two (Opening shot: the exterior of the girls’ house during the day.) Narrator: The city of…whoopsie, wrong scene. (He clears his throat; zoom in slowly.) As I was saying, who will save Townsville? (Inside, the Professor is hunched over a computer in the lab, with his back to the camera. The screen before him depicts a DNA molecule.) Narrator: Oh! The Professor! I get it. (The girls fly into view; Buttercup’s face is still made up, but she has otherwise put herself back in order.) Bubbles: Professor, we still haven’t caught Mask Scara! Blossom: And now the whole city’s literally covered in the Trashy Look! Buttercup: Have you made any progress? (Close-up of the screen.) Professor: (from o.c.) Girls, check this out. I’ve invented a DNA-based, vector-sensitive, target-seeking computer virus— (The display changes to show the outlines of a car, house, computer, and cell phone all connected to a box in the center of the screen. Within this box is the image of a woman. As the Professor continues, the DNA strand pops up in each of the four surrounding items.) Professor: (from o.c.) —which, if remotely uploaded to the target individual’s communications peripherals— (She panics.) —will directly enter their sensory system, causing the individual to cluck uncontrollably like a chicken… (On the end of this, the display changes to show only her; now her mouth has been replaced by a chicken’s beak, and she is squawking loudly. As the Professor names each of the following symptoms, she starts to exhibit it as well.) Professor: (from o.c.) …develop incurable rashes, with or without excess body hair. Hideous screaming follows, and finally— (chuckling) —total meltdown. (This last is represented by a puddle of liquid where the woman used to stand. Pull back to frame the family.) Bubbles: Um…that’s coolie, but will it help us catch Mask Scara? Professor: Well, no. Blossom: Professor, we’re running out of time! Professor: Yes, girls, I know. (Now he turns, exposing his face—he too has found himself on the wrong end of Mask Scara’s bag of tricks. The girls cry out in fright.) Professor: I just need more time. (He turns back to his work.) Blossom: Okay. But hurry, Professor! (Wipe to a quick pan through the city. The girls pull into view during the next line.) Narrator: Meanwhile, the girls scour the city, looking for any clue that will lead them to Mask Scara. (They land on a rooftop.) Blossom: We’ve scoured the whole city, and still no clue that will lead us to Mask Scara. (Some distant noise starts up.) Bubbles: There’s gotta be some way. Blossom: Shhh! (Close-up of her, hand cupped to ear.) I hear something! (With all the conversation having stopped, she—and we—can hear it clearly: their foe’s laughter and the sound of her swooping in somewhere. Blossom’s eyes go wide with surprise.) Blossom: You hear that, Bubbles?…Bubbles? (The enemy blasts past the roof; when the view clears, the camera has pulled back to frame all three girls. Bubbles has received a split-second, overdone makeover, and the laughter is gone.) Bubbles: Hear what? Buttercup: Yeah! About time! Blossom: (turning Bubbles to face a window) Uh, Bubbles? You better take a look. (Pan slightly to bring the reflection into view. Bubbles seems pleased with the outcome.) Bubbles: You know, I kinda like it! (Buttercup fumes and claps her hands to her face.) Gee, Blossom. How come Mask Scara hasn’t gotten you yet? Blossom: Because she isn’t going to. That’s why. In fact, I’ve figured out a way we can catch her. Crowd: How? (A made-up bull hangs its head into view and moos with them.) Blossom: By intercepting her at what will clearly be her next target. (Quick pan to a hotel. A stage has been set up in front; its backdrop is a large red cloth that has been put in place to cover something. A considerable crowd has gathered to watch, and camera crews are on hand to film this event.) Narrator: The unveiling of the new mural of the Mayor of Townsville! (Close-up of a podium on the stage.) And here to open the ceremonies tonight is none other than the Mayor of Townsville himself! (A spotlight is trained on the podium, but the little man is nowhere to be seen. Several seconds pass with no noise other than a bit of coughing from someone in the crowd.) Narrator: Uh, Mr. Mayor? (Several more seconds go by with no sign of the elected official. The camera shifts to show the back of the podium, the side that faces the speaker. A drape hangs down beneath the surface on which lecture notes are to be spread out; this hides the interior of the fixture from view.) Narrator: (annoyed) Oh, Mr. Mayor? (Close-up of the drape; now loud snoring can be heard from behind it. A hand reaches into view and pulls this away—and inside is the Mayor, asleep on his feet, drooling steadily, and still showing the Trashy Look as seen earlier on. However, a lipstick mouth has been painted onto his mustache as well. The hand pokes him, startling him out of his nap.) Mayor: No! I didn’t take it! (hands to head) It was Ms. Bellum! (A glass of water is dumped over him.) Narrator: Mayor! It’s time for you to make your speech! Mayor: Uh…oh, okay. (He thinks for a long moment.) Uh…what speech? Narrator: The speech you will make! Mayor: Oh. Narrator: No, not “oh,” you! (More thinking.) Mayor: Why? Narrator: No, you! Mayor: You? Narrator: No, not me! You, the Mayor! Mayor: Me? Narrator: Yes, that’s what I said! Mayor: Now wait a minute. Who’s “I”? Narrator: “I” is you. Mayor: Stop it! Narrator: Gee, are you okay? Mayor: (sobbing) I don’t know anymore! (Long shot of the area; the girls are now onstage.) Narrator: Aw, forget it. (Zoom in slowly.) And providing security tonight against any unexpected events are none other than… (Close-up of Bubbles, panning to Blossom and then Buttercup.) …the Powerpuff Girls! (The long shot again; now the spotlight beams play over the cloth covering.) Narrator: So what do you say we unveil that mural, huh? (Wild cheering from the crowd. Close-up of the girls; behind them, the cloth begins to rise slowly. Close-up of Bubbles, who looks toward Blossom with some unease, then pull back. The Mayor’s feet have been uncovered on the gigantic painting that covers the entire front of the hotel. Buttercup is seen in a similar shot; cut to Blossom, her arms folded and her face showing a tight, confident smile. The Mayor’s midsection has now been revealed; as the crowd watches with bated breath, we see Buttercup and Bubbles in turn. Each of their faces now shows great tension as they look up along the artwork’s height. The Mayor’s mustache—lipsticked just like that of the man himself—is exposed; back to the crowd, which suddenly goes from smiles to a stunned gasp. Long shot: the entire mural has been unveiled, and the Mayor’s painted counterpart has fallen victim to Mask Scara just as he did. The Narrator cries out in shock.) Narrator: Mask Scara’s already struck the mural! (Zoom in on the face; cut to the Mayor.) Mayor: Huh! The likeness is uncanny. Buttercup: (kicking a can furiously) That does it! Why don’t you come out and face us, face to face? We’ll see if your brushes can match our punches! (Cut to a patch of sky, the camera pointing up through the buildings. A woman reaches into view and points up as the evildoer of the hour streaks overhead.) Woman: (from o.c.) Look! (Cut to the crowd.) Man: It’s…it’s… (The sky again; Mask Scara has written her name in huge multicolored letters.) Man: (from o.c.) …Mask Scara! (Her laughter echoes in the air as she puts on the final touches; cut to her in flight, riding the giant powder brush. She sweeps down toward the mural and lands on the roof of the hotel.) Mask Scara: (taunting) What’s the matter, girls? Don’t you appreciate my little…makeover? Blossom: Just tell us why you did it, Mask Scara! Why? (This catches her slightly off balance for a second or two, but she soon smiles oddly.) Mask Scara: Why? Mayor: (cowering) Oh, no! Not again! Mask Scara: I’ll tell you why. Because I wanted the extra… (Extreme close-up of her eyes.) …coverage! (Pull back; she breaks the mood.) Get it? Coverage? (She laughs heartily over this pun, just as she did on that “foundation” crack before.) Bubbles: Um…Blossom…she’s nuts! (Mask Scara is now on her back, laughing herself silly and kicking her legs in the air; next she rolls over onto her stomach and pounds her fists against the roof.) Mask Scara: Oh, shorty, that was a good one. Blossom: Enough of your bad jokes, Mask Scara! It’s time to take a powder! (Yelling, the girls take off and rocket straight up toward the roof. Mask Scara stands ready.) Mask Scara: Oh, you want to play ball, eh? Good. (She lifts her brush.) ’Cause Mask Scara’s up at bat. (She swings the brush, releasing a broad arc of pink powder.) Mask Scara: And she socks it clear to Louisiana, and it’s a triple! (Cut to the girls on the end of this. Blossom swerves to avoid the powder, but her sisters are caught in it and sent spinning.) Mask Scara: (from o.c.) No, a double. Drat! (The powder dissipates, leaving the two girls coughing in midair. Back to the roof.) Mask Scara: That’s what I call battin’ rouge! (She laughs over this latest awful pun until Blossom gets in her face.) Mask Scara: Huh? (Blossom lands a blow that sends the brush flying; she tries to deliver another one, but the woman jumps clear. Cut to her in midair and reaching behind her back for something.) Mask Scara: This calls for… (pulling out huge eyelash curler tongs) …the Mask Scara Mega-Lash Curler! (She snaps the tongs together a couple of times. Bubbles and Buttercup rush her, but she sidesteps their advance and snares them on the return pass. Crushed together, one on top of the other, they yelp in pain for a moment.) Mask Scara: Backlash! (She is tapped on the shoulder by Blossom and hit with a left hook that would stop a convoy of trucks. It sends her flying toward the Canada billboard exposed during the “Bubblesound” attempt to remove Buttercup’s makeup. She lands on the moose’s snout; the embarrassed animal laughs. Now Blossom pries her sisters apart and looks toward where the woman hit.) Blossom: Uh-oh. (Mask Scara, now atop the billboard, pulls out a huge tube labeled “Base Creme.”) Mask Scara: Super-Elastic Base Creme! (She squeezes the tube and sends its contents out in a mighty gush. Blossom dodges this, but Bubbles and Buttercup are hit square on and pushed o.c. by the force of it.) Mask Scara: Base hit! (The two girls stick against the side of a building and try in vain to free themselves from the gooey mess. Blossom flies over to them.) Blossom: Brace yourselves, girls! (She fires her eye lasers, softening the adhesive enough to let her sisters pull loose. Now Mask Scara has a giant lip liner pencil in hand and swings it around to point at the girls.) Mask Scara: Oh, yeah? Have a taste of my Liquidescent Lip Liner! (A broad beam of red light shoots from the tip; as it travels, it shapes itself into a giant pair of lips. Cut to the girls, charging in, then to the lips, then back to the girls as they raise three full-force yells of rage. Long shot of the area; the girls and the lips approach in slow motion, the lips puckering as for a kiss. When they collide, there is a huge explosion and the camera pulls back to show a gargantuan cloud of red smoke over the city. Cut to Mask Scara, who tilts her head slightly to look at something o.c., then to said something—the girls, seen plummeting toward the street in an overhead view. Back to the villainess, who watches eagerly as the crash landing shakes the camera; she then throws the lip liner aside.) Mask Scara: Now that’s what I call the kiss of death! (In the street, horror-stricken onlookers gather around the unconscious girls as her laughter rains down on them. Pull back slowly.) Narrator: Is this it? Are the Powerpuffs no match for Mask Scara’s powder puff? (A news van is parked at the curb. The Professor’s car races into view and rear-ends it, knocking it out of the way. Back to the girls.) Professor: (from o.c.) Girls!…Girls! (They start to come around and manage to lift their heads with great effort. Blossom rubs her eyes and stares in disbelief.) Blossom: Professor? (Cut to the curb. Getting out of the driver’s seat is a figure in a flowered dress, apron, and flat-heeled shoes, holding what looks like a giant jar of cold cream—but the legs are far too hairy to belong to any woman. Tilt up slowly to the head; it is the Professor, with his black hair hidden by a dark blond wig.) Professor: (laughing nervously, to camera) I’ll explain later. (running to girls) Girls, I’ve done it. I’ve finally created an antidote! (Close-up of the jar’s label. The first four words are arranged so that their large-text first letters fall in a single column; beneath them is the word “System” in small print. The Professor points out each word as he says it.) Professor: (from o.c.) Calibrating Oscillating Lifting Dermatological Cream. [Error: The first, second and fourth words are spelled “Callibrating,” “Occilating,” and “Dermalogical,” respectively.] (Pull back. The girls blink confusedly up at the Professor for some moments before Blossom speaks.) Blossom: What does that mean? Professor: (holding up jar) Oh, just another fancy name for cold cream. (He turns the container around, revealing another label: “C.O.L.D. Cream.”) Crowd: Cold cream?!? Buttercup: Gimme that! (She snatches it away and opens it.) I’m getting this junk off of my face once and for— Bubbles: No, me first! (She yanks it away.) Buttercup: (grabbing it back) Nuh-uh, I got dibs! Bubbles: (seizing hold) Nuh-uh! (The two girls start trying to pull it out of each other’s hands; finally Bubbles tears it free.) Bubbles: Gotcha! (The cream goes flying out of the jar in slow motion due to the force of her yank. Cut to a street-level view of Mask Scara, still atop the billboard, and zoom in.) Mask Scara: NOOOOOOO!! (The dollop hits her dead in the face in slow motion, knocking her from her perch. Street level; she has landed on her feet and is clutching her face. Now she is dripping with the Professor’s concoction, and she yells in agony as smoke rises from her half-barbecued hair and the rest of her body. Close-up of a sewer grate; as the sound of her suffering continues, ribbons of red and pink goo flow across the pavement and disappear beneath the street—her makeup is finally coming off. Back to the crowd, the Professor, and the girls, all of whom recoil from what is happening before their eyes. Finally Mask Scara’s cries die away and the cosmetics she applied so liberally to everyone’s face fades away.) Blossom: (to her sisters) Hey! Your makeup’s all gone! (The crowd cheers and throws confetti. Mask Scara is left dazed, with sodden hair and not one bit of her own makeup. Cut to a pan across the city; all her handiwork has vanished. Among the items seen: the Siberia billboard with the happy couple, the cowboy poster, and the statue.) Narrator: Yes! And with Mask Scara’s malevolent masquerade over with, Townsville is once again restored to its former splendor. (Cut to the girls. Blossom nods in a very self-satisfied manner while her sisters trade a slightly nasty look.) Narrator: Except for Blossom, of course, who never lost it to begin with. Buttercup: Yeah, Blossom. How come Mask Scara never got you? Blossom: Well, let me break it down for you. As the leader of the Powerpuff Girls, I’m always one step ahead—using my keen head and clear mind, implementing my brains and natural beauty. Now, if you don’t mind, I must be on my— (On the end of this, she starts to walk o.c. However, she slips in a mud puddle and is thrown into the air to hang there for a long moment, yelling in surprise. She lands flat on her back in the puddle and is copiously splattered with the muck. Standing up, she loses her balance and stumbles, still yelling, over to a painter who is applying a fresh coat of red to a wall. She falls headfirst into an open can and emerges with her entire face covered. Unable to see through the paint, she staggers down the block and crashes into a stack of boxes on the sidewalk outside a grocery market. A bag of flour set on top of these tumbles down and spills its contents in a white cloud. When the view clears, Blossom is white in any places that are not already read or brown, except for her eyelids and part of her ponytail. Coughing, she gropes her way down the street and runs into some more boxes. An open container of Styrofoam packing peanuts is knocked free, and these pour down onto her head and pile up to look like a baby’s bonnet, hiding her bow from view. She tries to sort all this out for a moment before turning to address Bubbles and Buttercup as if absolutely nothing unusual has happened. They have joined her on this sidewalk.) Blossom: Well, as I was saying, I must be on my way. I’ve got important things…to… (She loses steam because her sisters have started laughing over her ridiculous appearance.) Blossom: What? What’s so funny? (The crowd joins in. As Bubbles and Buttercup point at their hapless sibling, the Professor has a good laugh, followed by Ms. Bellum and then the Mayor. The little man howls so much that he trails off into a coughing fit. Pull back slowly out of the gathering as the merriment continues.) (The background for the end shot comes up.) Narrator: (laughing throughout) And so once again— (He trails off.) Once— (Again.) (The girls appear in a triangle formation. Blossom, at top C, is doing her best to hold her usual pose with some bit of dignity, but is failing miserably. Buttercup and Bubbles, at bottom L and bottom R, respectively, are laughing their heads off. The Narrator does likewise for some seconds before getting any useful words out.) Narrator: —thanks to the Powerpuff Girls! (More laughter.)Category:Transcripts